


A Death Eater's Manifesto

by calrissian18



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: History of the First War, M/M, Off-screen Character Death, Posthumous Account
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-29
Updated: 2012-11-29
Packaged: 2017-11-19 20:05:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/577147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calrissian18/pseuds/calrissian18
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The history of the war and the rise of Voldemort as told by Draco Malfoy. Compliant up to HBP.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Death Eater's Manifesto

**Author's Note:**

> It is character death but not the typical formula for one so I hope you won't let that deter you. I wrote this on the heels of reading Benazir Bhutto's, "Reconciliation" and, having always been curious as to Voldemort's first reign and how that came about, I saw the parallels there almost immediately. So, yes, I do realize the lessons here are applicable outside of fiction as this is based on nonfiction that fit so perfectly with Death Eaters/wizarding population, not the other way around. This is fairly Gen with Harry/Draco hints sprinkled near the end - if you're looking for a PWP... well, I don't really write those. ;)

 

Harry walked the sun dappled streets of Diagon Alley, freshly twenty, freshly free of Voldemort, and freshly annoyed as a bickering Ron and Hermione argued in tow. He rolled his eyes, ignoring them, and glanced in the window of Flourish and Blotts, scowling as he saw what was propped up in the display. "I see Malfoy's posthumous self-serving gibberish hasn't been protested out of the stores yet," he said darkly.

Hermione's head flicked around abruptly, her bushy hair bouncing, and her eyes went wide with excitement. "Oh, I've only just finished it! It's absolutely gorgeous," she gushed. "One of the most intelligent and satisfying works I've ever read!" She smiled and shot an amused look at Ron. "Certainly puts a whole new spin on History of Magic."

Harry stopped dead and stared at her in utter bewilderment, demanding incredulously, "You've _read_ it?"

Hermione waved off his reaction with an exasperated air and added, "I even caught Ron with it last night." She frowned thoughtfully. "It looked as if he was crying."

Ron shoved his hands into his pockets and muttered, "As if I would shed a tear for the Ferret." But Harry noticed he wasn't quite meeting his eye.

Hermione sighed pensively. "It makes me wish we had known him better at school, I mean really known him."

Ron seemed to have found a half-eaten Honeydukes chocolate bar in the pocket his hand was buried so deep inside and said around a mouthful, "Well, he wouldn't have been like that, would he?" He shrugged and scratched at his elbow with the multi-colored wrapper. "He said it himself, the war changed him."

Hermione seemed to be considering this and conceded, "Hmm, yes. One of the few things he does say about himself. You noticed that, didn't you? He explains so much but he never says word one about his own childhood or experiences, just innuendo."

Hermione seemed frankly fascinated by this and, to Harry's surprise, Ron looked as if he had been waiting to discuss the subject of Malfoy for ages. "Doesn't really seem to be about him though, does it?" Ron reminded her with zest. "It's more about us. The survivors."

At this, Harry balked. "Us and them, you mean? He talks about the Death Eaters, too, I'd imagine," he said with a sour look.

Ron nodded but threw out nonchalantly, "Yeah, but Draco doesn't see it like that."

Harry reared like a spooked thestral. "Draco?" he demanded.

Ron shrugged, feigning unconcern, but his face was quickly turning a dark red that clashed hideously with his hair. "That's his name," he mumbled.

Harry glared at him. "What do you mean anyway?"

Ron cleared his throat. "He says that there's always this 'us and them' mentality, but that that's never the case. That we're all just people."

Harry was beginning to become disturbed by this 'Draco says,' 'Draco thinks' business and said instead, "Hello, and some of those people tried to kill _us_!"

Hermione drew his attention back. "Just read the book, Harry," she suggested. She turned back to Ron while the three of them kept walking past the shop window, saying breathily, "Oh, I just really wish that things had turned out differently, that he was still alive, you know. He's just so fascinating and I feel, well, cheated I suppose that he was so close but we never got to know him."

Harry saw Ron nodding and he cast a sideways glance at the pair of them, unable to keep from bursting out, "Uh, guys, we did know him. He was a hideous, miserable git, remember?"

Hermione opened her mouth, her lips pinched thin like McGonagall's, but to Harry's surprise it was Ron who spoke up. "Maybe we knew him during school but, I can tell you, the man he was during the war and at the time of his death was a complete stranger to us."

Harry stared at him in disbelief but no more seemed forthcoming as Ron had found an atomic fire-breather in his other pocket and was busy smoking at the mouth.

♕

Harry entered Flourish and Blotts, wary and annoyed with himself. However, he had little choice but to buy the stupid thing and get it over with. The only topic of conversation among his co-workers, friends, or even strangers on the street seemed to be Malfoy's idiotic book.

There were no copies in the display any longer and Harry resigned himself to having to ask one of the employees. He seemed to have caught the proprietor whom he remembered from his third year. "Er, I'm looking for Draco Malfoy's book, _A Death Eater's Manifesto_."

"Sorry, sir," the shopkeeper said cheerfully, looking anything but apologetic. "Just sold out my last copies. I can't seem to stock them fast enough. I should have some more in on Wednesday, if you want to pre-order you're welcome to it. At this rate, it seems like the only way you'll get one."

Harry nodded and gave him his information, reserving himself a copy, the shopkeeper humming merrily as he handed him his receipt. Harry hadn't even known he could smile that wide as the last memory he had of the man was harassed and tense as he battled with the _Monster Book of Monsters_.

He turned away from the counter just as a paintbrush started spelling out in smooth black ink:

  
_Sold out of_ _'A Death Eater's Manifesto_ _'_  
Restock on Wednesday

♕   


An hour earlier, a tawny owl had flown through Harry's open window and dropped a heavy package wrapped in brown paper on his plate of eggs. Harry had unwrapped it, set it down carefully, and paced around it before finally distracting himself with the kettle.

Harry now sat at his kitchen table, steaming cup of tea in hand, and prepared himself to hate the written word as it had been unhappily encroached upon by a Malfoy. He scowled, flipped to the first page, and read:

**Introduction**

I had the great pleasure of knowing the boy whose words you now hold in your hands, whose mind and heart has been spilled across these pages, whose critiques and intelligence shine through every letter. These are his words and his story told in his voice, not mine. As I sat in his empty room at the war's end, the cheer slowly seeping from the walls as its inhabitant's demise truly struck them, with his narration plaguing my mind, I grounded myself in the belief that these words were meant to be shared with the world.

You are not reading of some foreign event or some heart-pounding heroine. You are reading the maturation of a society through the maturing eyes of a boy who was on the cusp of becoming one of the most honorable and worthwhile men I have ever been lucky enough to meet.

I will forever regret the loss of that man, of that boy, of my student. But, in many small ways, as his words and ideas spread from person to person, he is brought back with each quotation, with each change he spawns, with each mindset he alters. He was always powerful, forever questioning, and filled with so much beauty it was nearly blinding.

He was my guidance in times of hardship and I offer to you his wisdom, his insight, and his heart with the hope that it will not lead you astray.

_Severus Snape  
January 1, 2000, 21:33:08_

  
_Forward_ _– Forewarned?_  


My name is Draco Malfoy.

I tell you this not to spurn anonymity or because I believe myself worthy of remembrance. I tell you this because I cannot be boiled down to an allegiance or a history. My name is no more Malfoy than it is Death Eater. I tell you this to prove that I am human. I tell you this because I am just a boy with a name.

I tell you this because I am no less loved than you are. I tell you this because behind the masks and the Marks, if you hack us up you'll see we're all made of the same parts. I tell you this because today both of our "sides" buried a brother, a mother, a sister, a father, a lover. I tell you this because while the masks dehumanize us, make us uniform and forgettable, beneath them is still a person, not a movement. I tell you this because you have failed to see it.

I tell you this because it just might save you.

♕

Harry snorted, muttering, "Been there, done that, Malfoy. You're a bit late," before he flipped to the next page.

_The Rise of Hope and the Fall of Public Opinion_

I've read your history books, stacked upon your shelves in your libraries, lying in wait and gathering dust, molding your minds like wet clay. It would behoove you to remember that history is not objective, it is not simply facts and figures and dates, because all history – history worthy of study, that is – is written by those who proved superior. To the victor go the spoils. And, in this instance, spoils means dictation – the right to narrate your conquest with all the proper frills and thrills.

Dictation – Dictator. I am loath to find many differences. They are both ruled by one sole authoritarian figure and, with both, the power is all-consuming. I have no trouble spotting the more dangerous of the two. All we know and ever was has been dictated through oral tradition, literature, and language. The man who controls dictation controls the world one could say – and would not be far off. A dictator rules a paltry country, lords over a drop in a sea of billions. The man who controls dictation controls all the knowledge there ever was or will be.

Therefore it is disheartening, though not surprising, to find that our own histories have been edited, stripped, and rationalized. We describe Voldemort as a coming storm that bore down on us without warning or restraint. (Pardon if my hand shakes, it is the first I have written the name.) One memorable text denotes Voldemort as: "A ruthless villain whose namesake is enough to strike fear into the hearts of millions. And while we tremble and rail, knowing the reign of terror that will soon befall us, what can a petty people do against one so strong?"

Petty. Indeed. We forget, or rather, we suppress that it is us who invited him in, who took his coat, offered him a whisky, and told him to make himself at home. We welcomed him with open arms as any proper host would. And it is not a question of blame or stupidity. He waited for the moment we needed a savior most.

Whatever words of comfort you whisper to each other across the silence in cold beds or the stories you tell your children as you tuck them in: Voldemort is not mindless, he is not senseless, he is not without method. Cruelty does not exclude intelligence. Most importantly, he is not without patience.

Nearly three decades ago, when Voldemort rose to power, we as a people were as divided as we'd ever been. Our Ministry could not make a sound decision that did not conflict with a sect of us. Deep fissures ran through our community, suspicions were rampant among friends and neighbors centering around political agendas and allegiances.

Whispers started to spread through communities. A simple observation, nothing inflammatory or derogatory, would catalyze a horror that would plague us until the death of Lily Potter and the rise of her son. Those in power – they were Muggleborn, weren't they? That was the single remark that was being passed between women at the grocery store and men at the bathroom stall.

It was not that they were incapable was the comment always made, scoffed at, laughed about in a high and carrying timber. Of course not. But, well, they couldn't have as good an understanding of what the wizarding world needed as, for instance, those who grew up _in_ the wizarding world.

It was to this environment that Voldemort was born. It was to this crowd that he whispered his simplistic view of the future – a world in which those in power were those who could truly appreciate it. He shied away from labeling them as 'purebloods' but the understanding of the intention was bone deep.

Now, kiddies, look at your Mum. Look at your Da. They most likely – at some point – supported Voldemort, perhaps were even enamored of him. This does not make them evil or unlovable. This makes them opportunists. They recognized a savior as a majority of the population did.

It was only as he gained followers and had enough of a hold on the political landscape that Voldemort's views became radical and militant. It was only then that he started to disillusion his supporters, it was only then that he decided to brand his loyal few so they would feel his wrath should they defect, it was only then that he could unleash his true vision on our unsuspecting populace.

We fought. That I can say. We fought and we died our beautiful and noble deaths. We martyred ourselves at his feet.

We fought.

_Those who Followed and He who Led_

You. You who lived through the first, it is to you that I pose this question: Do you never feel the guilt of your actions? Or does the blood on your hands become easier to accessorize, does slumber come quicker as the time passes? How do you prosper with the knowledge of what you've done always gnawing at you?

Again, your books fail me as to your pasts. You've erased them entirely, haven't you? Tell me, have you learned to live with your shame or simply falsified your memories? I see your references to "those whose guilt was unapparent, e.g., Imperius Curse, Befuddlement Charms, and Confundus Curses" but what about those who did not claim a spurious and improvable defense? Do you not remember what you did to them?

You who spout your rhetoric, you who avow you were not hard enough on those who deserted the moral code of our society the first time around, I plead with you, remember your history – not the revised and amended misinformation that poses as fact in your libraries – your own personal history. Do you not remember what you did to those without apology?

The Dementors who sustain themselves on our happiness, rear our despair, and feast upon our souls – you set them to guard over us without trial or remorse. You take our lives but not our breaths. You call Voldemort rogue when he must raise the dead to meet your Inferi? Yes, Inferi. Do you not realize that is what you have made with your vengeful hands?

You first created these walking dead, incapable of even the slightest independent act yet still conscious, still animate. And you think yourselves faultless, you think your response to his inhumanity with inhumanity was warranted? Yes, you who are the moral majority. You are the ones who introduced the most terrifying, the most _sadistic_ practice both during the war and after it.

Does it never weigh upon you, that you have taken a _soul_ , something that – despite to whom it belongs – is pure? Do not think I cannot comprehend your fear. It is dear to me and we all share it, each and every one of us. But you must own up to your culpability, you met brutality with brutality and you loved every taste of it.

You've made it so acceptable that the references to Dementors in your tomes are done without pause, without explanation: "As we struggled, we had only one recourse left to us. Those who were captured were sent to Azkaban while we sunk our swords into the hearts of our enemies, fighting to see the dawn of a new day where our children would not know the evil that had promulgated amongst us."

While you thinned the herd, you mean. And what of their children, these mindless monsters you slew? Do you not see how even your prose dehumanizes us? You do not even mention Dementors or that each and every Death Eater captured before Voldemort's fall – man, woman, child – indiscriminately had their souls fed to them without recourse or recompense.

I know you content yourself with the thought you nourish and cradle like a burgeoning youth: I was not in charge, I am not responsible. We are all responsible. We are all guilty. Not a one of us spoke out against this practice. Our fright, our vengeance, our despair constricted our throats. Terrible, terrible things have been done in the name of fear. And the Death Eaters made sure we were afraid.

They bred chaos, fed from it, extorted it, and then criticized our leaders for it. They disseminated despair and preyed upon it. They hissed in our ears our concerns and worries and parroted back our fears, claiming a quick fix. They performed admirably, convincing as they are. It is not a weakness of character that enjoined us to them, only a desire for a better world. We are all guilty of this.

You must remember, they are never without their greatest weapon: their words. Discord is easily spread, especially amongst a divided people, and it was not difficult to turn curiosity into suspicion, to encourage your eyes to narrow with distrust against your fellows.

When Voldemort fell, those who daily moved amongst us, shadows with dark hearts and minds that wait with diabolical patience, receded into the abyss of normality and we enjoyed a tentative and willfully ignorant thirteen years of calm, forgetting we were ever in danger, forgetting these beasts ever existed, forgetting our reply to their actions.

It was these men who, when the time came, spread unrest with an expertise and efficiency that had been unseen before them.

_The Foolishness of a Ministry_

The war has changed me. Changed us all. It was inescapable, I assume. It has made me cautious, purposeful, and composed. Perhaps before its emergence I could not have seen the world for what it is as opposed to what it wants me to see. Perhaps I would not have been able to distinguish fact from spoon-fed fiction. Professors demand you to employ critical thinking and then teach from fluff-filled volumes of contrived knowledge.

I have seen the war for what it is: the revocation of an invitation to a once-welcomed guest. I have seen the Ministry for what it is: a bureaucratic and ineffective giant that has come to sustain itself upon power and authoritarian clout while it becomes divorced from the very people who nurtured it. And I have seen Cornelius Fudge for what he is: a scapegoat.

I am certain you felt empowered, full of righteous indignation as you were, when you called for his resignation, blaming him for the wool that had been pulled over your eyes. But how can you condemn a man for experiencing the same uncertainty that you, yourselves, experienced? Without proof, who would want to take on faith that a man who once committed such horrible atrocities, who once terrified and disheartened an entire people – atrocities and terror that you had lived through at the height of his power – was back and ready to wreak havoc once again?

I am certain you know the answer to this. Had he warned you, would you not have cried for evidence of his return – more than the word of a child, however respected – would you not have denounced him as a fear-monger and despair-peddler? You would have, and you are not alone in that, because the alternative is far worse than an incompetent leader.

And so we slather him with our blame and our remonstrations but, perhaps, now the time has come to look inward, to recognize our own responsibility inherent in Voldemort's return. After all, did we not, in our ignorance, offer him a foothold? Did we not foster the perfect environment for his rebirth? I often wonder, what would we have done had Harry Potter been more passive in his declarations?

♕

Harry stopped reading, having gravitated to the fireplace in his foyer without his mind's consent as the daylight had left his kitchen to be replaced by an outpouring of darkness. He hated the understanding and compassion that had wormed its way into his heart as he read Malfoy's words. Suddenly he could comprehend the actions of the adults in his life much more clearly and was therefore more inclined to forgive them. Without considering it, Harry threw a pinch of Floo powder into the flames, called out for east London and waited for a face to appear.

Hermione's head popped up in the grate, looking harried, however that quickly vanished as she fixed him with a knowing smile, recognizing what was in his hand. "You want to talk about the book, don't you, Harry?"

Harry stood up, running a hand through his hair, and murmured distractedly, "Yeah. I guess." He stopped in front of the grate and looked at her. "I'm just – I'm surprised by how honest it is."

Hermione was not looking in the least bit put upon now and nodded wisely. "You read his first words, Harry. He was tired of being lied to, of having his own history distorted." She eyed him carefully. "You expect his account to be full of the same biases when he was so disgusted by them?"

Harry shook his head, vacillating between yes and no. He finally shrugged and admitted, "I guess I didn't think he would be able to rise above it. You know, making himself look good."

"We tried to tell you, the man that wrote that book is not the boy we knew," she said, smiling. "But this is what he became and, I must say, despite what he thinks, he is a man worthy of remembrance." She looked oddly proud of both Harry and Malfoy.

"Yeah." Harry paced back and forth in front of his mantle, deciding, "You're right though, I wish – I wish things had turned out differently."

Hermione's voice was sage, a tinge of sadness in the lining, "Many people do. That's the power of his words, that all these people who once would have only been able to see him as 'Death Eater' now feel as if they know him, as if they were a part of his world. He's started a revolution in the way people think and feel towards one another." Hermione's tone was respectful and awed. "It's… remarkable, don't you think."

Harry nodded instantly. "Yeah," he agreed, staring down at the book in his hand. "He really is."

Harry looked up to find Hermione gazing at him with a look of sympathy, uncomfortably close to tears, and was about to squawk out an interrogation as to what was wrong when she shook him off, visibly perked up, and recited, "I hear Durmstrang's already ordered over a hundred copies. They're going to teach it in their history classes."

"Good," Harry growled, distracted by the book's plain cover once again. "They should."

"I see you're getting near the end," Hermione observed.

Harry swallowed, he had only about a quarter of the book left and tried to explain his feeling of unease to Hermione. "Yeah. On one hand I really want to finish, you know, but on the other…" He trailed off, finding himself unable to voice the rest of his thought. _It feels like he's right here, sitting in my foyer and soothing away my hurts as he tells me all that's come to pass in that smooth voice of his. When the story ends, so does the conversation. So does the company._

Hermione gazed at him inscrutably as she noted, "You have practically devoured that book, I don't even think you read _Quidditch Through the Ages_ as quickly." Harry sank into one of his armchairs, for some reason feeling as if his guts were slowly being pulled out of him. "What is it?" Hermione asked with concern.

Harry indicated the book and said, his throat tight, "He – He saw more than I ever gave him credit for."

Hermione's lips curved into a bitter grin. "You. Me. And everyone else."

♕

_The Evils of a People_

It is without reluctance and with stern judgment that we hurl our furious reprisals down upon the evils that were committed by Voldemort's supporters. Their misdeeds, we cry, were inhuman and unforgivable and we throw them to their soulless fates. And yet you same people who hurled down your rulings and cried against mercy also cried for your own tyrant, your own villain, your new savior.

He was as ruthless, as brutal, as unforgiving as any Death Eater one might meet. What was your excuse? Violence with violence, you must place in power one who can understand how such a devious mind works, or simply we deserve our revenge?

Sirius Black did not even have a Dark Mark when your Lord pointed at him and declared, "He is a murderer of one wizard, twelve Muggles, and the beginnings of peace." He headed your Council of Magical Law as he led your race for Minister and, had not Voldemort's taint touched his family, he would be your despot.

He rained down his pronouncements and you devoured them like a starving public. You did not care for innocence or guilt, you cared for a sense of safety – manufactured or no. You would have followed him to the ends, wouldn't you? His tyrannical and deranged rule aside, you would not have cared. He would have led you into battle without remorse or compassion, flaming sword held aloft as he charged against those who were just as dangerous as he.

Your would-have-been Minister, Bartemius Crouch. I often wake with nightmares in my brain and a 'what if' on my lips.

_Parting Ways with Parting Words_

I have given my life for this war. I know it. Either I am dead or simply a compass without a needle. There is no 'north' on my horizon, there is no direction which offers safe passage. I welcome the end unreservedly, regardless of what it offers. I am not brave or righteous, in fact it is my cowardice that drives me. My fear of the unknown is much greater for life than for death.

I think, perhaps, in that we are united. One people unified by a lack of purpose. What is there for those of us in which this is all we have ever known? How do you survive a war when all you know is how to fight, how to die, how to resist? How do you survive? I think it is a question we are all asking.

We are an excitable and easily influenced group and the end will be abrupt no matter how it comes about, no matter how long the war drags on, it will end with our wands still raised and a spell on our lips. The shift will leave us on tenterhooks and we will look for someone to blame, to bear the brunt of our snowballing anger and the momentum of our fear. You will look to the Death Eaters.

You will identify them by the stains across their skin, never once looking into their eyes, never once considering them as anything more than a remnant of a mass-murdering tyrant. Perhaps it's all they deserve – more than they deserve.

Those you release will be unemployable, unwelcome, and unnoticed. A purposefully ignored taint on an otherwise upstanding society. And you will write the history books and you will say how unpredictable his return was – though many foresaw it – and you will say how ruthless and stupid his followers were – though you almost became them.

Perhaps I write this for clemency on behalf of those who were not quick enough in deserting, not brave enough in dying, not fearless enough in resisting. Or perhaps I write this to save your own souls rather than theirs. I do not think I can make a change but I would like to go to my end – however it comes – knowing I've at least tried. There will always be those who look down on us. I believe that is inherent to human nature, and far beyond the control of any one person.

But if you chase the path of those before you – the narrow and exclusionary roads that teem with the small-minded and wicked – the likes of which Voldemort, Bartemius Crouch, and Cornelius Fudge have walked before you, ask yourselves, have you not become the monster you have so rightly slain?

You may have noticed that I have identified myself as a part of both camps, though I never truly belonged to either. I refused to choose in this war of choices. Because I'm just a boy with a name and I have no place in a war begun by my forefathers and finished by my children. I am just one person and I cannot bring myself to turn my back on the suffering of my fellows, regardless of creed or belief.

Some will look to this diary of past, present, and future and condemn it as heresy, as hypocrisy, as a Death Eater manifesto. You will screech and yank your hair out in tufts as you miss my point entirely. So I will merely tell it. It is a simple observation – don't all of the world's greatest gaffes start out so? It is something a child would notice before you instilled in him hate and fear – a necessity to survival, you say. A crime against nature, I cry. It is a tiny thing, but it means so much to our endurance.

We are all equals. Our choices define us, yes, but they do not mutate us beyond the recognizable. We are human. Even Voldemort was a man, before his transformation and after. We paint him as a monster, a demon, and it is only human nature to think so. Our villains cannot have even a miniscule relation to us – us who are pure and infallible – because it would mean it is possible for any man to meet the same end.

But the simple truth is that an orphan that had never known love grew up to destroy all those who did – those who were like him or less significant. He fixated on the supremacy of purebloods because he wasn't one, because he had never known their bounty – would he not be worthy of affection if he was one of them, those who stood above all others? I am not trying to wring sympathy from your souls or force pity into your breasts, only to open your eyes. Would you not too fear death if you knew you had no one waiting for you on the other side?

Who can say what would have happened had someone – anyone – treated that small boy with warmth and care. Perhaps all those martyrs, all those noble and beautiful deaths, would never have had to fight so righteously.

Perhaps, today, Harry Potter would just be a boy with a name.

_Draco Malfoy  
April 3, 1998, 04:08:52_

♕

Harry sat on the floor of his foyer, the book settled reverently upon his thighs, his eyes glossy and the open pages tear-stained. He bit his lip and looked up at the empty chair across from him where, in some alternate universe, Draco Malfoy might have sat, sipping tea, while he told him the history of the war. Harry would have listened raptly, never once interrupting, and when he was done Harry would offer him his hand and ask him to come to bed.

Harry stared hard at the empty chair, the fire crackling merrily and throwing misleading shadows over its back. He glanced down at his book, flipped to the beginning, and read:

_My name is Draco Malfoy._


End file.
